Remembering Bruno and 'Outwith'
by IndigoStarshine
Summary: Gretel still misses Bruno after so many years, as any sister would miss her brother. A brief one shot.


It's been over 60 years and still think about my brother Bruno from time to time. In a way, I'm still looking for him. Sometimes I see a little boy that looks like him or a man about his age that looks like it could be him and I feel the urge to confront them. To ask them if they are Bruno, in the vague possibility that they might just say 'yes' but I am confronted with the brutal reality, that he is likely to be gone forever.

If my brother had just died and we knew, things might be different. I might have been able to grieve his loss and move on faster but simply disappearing has left things so open ended. Had he been murdered, died accidentally or kidnapped? Who would have done away with him and why? Or is there a possibility that he might be still alive? These questions will never be answered, maybe upon death but I'm not sure if I believe in any kind of afterlife.

It hurts to remember back when I moved with our father at his new workplace. Not because of its boredom but its ignorance. I don't think I can live with the fact that I was so blind to what was going on, but how could I have known? Young teenage girls do not assume that their fathers are mass murderers. People were treated so cruelly at the back of the place that I lived and the only excuse that my mother and I made to the American and Soviet invaders was that we never went into the parts of the house that were forbidden.

How many people died horrifically at the back of the house? The only reason was that they were Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals, Polish and Soviet civilians, prisoners of war and other groups that disagreed or did not in fit with the Aryan ideal. They estimate that over 11 million people died in the camps, six million of which were Jews. A great deal of them would have died in the camp overseen by my father.

I still think about my father too. I was left in a permanent state of shock when I found out what he had done. It's haunted me all my life as a shameful ghost. He was a kind father who loved us dearly and did not seem like the sociopathic type. Was he so eager to advance in the SS that he forgot what was really important? Maybe he was so caught up in the propaganda that he was swept far away from reality. I find it hard to believe that a man like my father could see people in their pain and suffering and deny that they were human. Maybe it helped him cope better to see them that way.

I remember that for a short time I was taken in by what the government of that time was teaching us. I wanted to be like everyone else and be a true German. I wanted to be like the other teenagers. It was what everyone did and I just followed along. I was ever so happy when the Furher himself and his girlfriend had dinner with us. He was such a rude, insolent man.

I feel embarrassed about what I thought about Kurt at the time, I thought he was very handsome and noble. When I saw him kill that old man my feelings for him evaporated into thin air. I was scared and disgusted but I didn't let it show, I knew I had to pretend to still like him. He was so fanatical in his support for the Nazi party, it was a bit confronting. I remember Bruno hated him and rightfully so. He treated Bruno in such a patronising way and the people in the camps with true distain. There was something not right about Kurt. I never found out what happened to him and nor do I care.

I do care about what happened to my father. The eventually hanged him but they kept him detained for a long time before hand – the trials went on forever and the things uncovered were disturbing beyond belief. He was offered the chance of writing to us but he didn't. He left this world without a word. No attempt at a justification for what he did. He had nothing to say for himself.

Maybe he knew what had become of Bruno and felt ashamed to write to us about that. My mother denied the horrible things he had done and even claimed it was all a Jewish conspiracy, but she never forgave him for not writing to us before his execution. I have no idea how my mother could continue to deny so much death and suffering when it happened right next to her, nor can I understand it in other people. She died about ten years after the war though, through cancer.

I went on with my life as if I was never there. I have never told anyone about it, nor will I ever. Not my friends, not my husband, not my three adult sons, not any of the grandchildren – yet, twelve years ago for about seven years a strange young man had a habit of leaving a floral wreath with my father's picture on it. I found out who he was and put a restraining order in him as fast as I could. I have no idea how he managed to discover me.

All of my three sons remind me of Bruno in a way, not so much in the form of looks but in personality. They love adventure and exploring, so much that my sons have travelled so far around the world. The Americas, Australia, Africa, Asia - much further than I had ever imagined going. I imagined what Bruno might have been like through them as a teenager, at 20, at 30, at 40 and nearing 50. I am so proud of them.

Bruno was denied their kind of life and it doesn't change the fact that Bruno will be an eight year old forever. He liked exploring, maybe he wandered somewhere he shouldn't have and was killed for it. He was always sneaking around the place. I can't blame him, it was so boring. He was such a lovely boy even if we were such brats to each other.

My feelings of loss and shock are probably nothing compared to the pain of survivors and those that did not live to tell the tale. I am an old woman now, who due to health problems, is not going to live for much longer. I wish I could change the past but it is far too late for that. It's unwise to dwell on the horrors of war and genocide. Let bygones be bygones – but remember not to repeat the mistakes of history.


End file.
